Survival in a Storm

 Written  on February 9, 2020

I created this slideshow video in Google Slides as a non-stop animation.

I started this non-stop animation by creating my first slide. In this slide, I set up my scenery. Then I duplicated this slide so I had a second slide.

Learning from Mystery Breakout Games

Written on September 22,, 2019

After spending time creating four breakout games for my Accounting, Web Design, Word and Excel classes, I finally was able to implement the games into my classroom.

When I created the games I was not sure about the level of difficulty. That was a concern. I did not want them to be too easy, but I also didn't want them to be too difficult. My Web Design class was the first class to take on the online escape rooms. I was really surprised and happy to see how excited and engaged they became in the game. In my Web Design class, everyone was able to finish. That was great. I gave the first place winners a bonus as well as all of the students who completed the game. They worked in teams of two and they did quite well.

What's New for 2019-2022?

 Written August 6, 2019

This year, after watching some very interesting talks on the Hive Summit and attending some very fun workshops this summer, I have plans to incorporate some new ideas into my classroom. I want to spice it up!

This year, I want to focus on developing leadership in my classroom. I have worked with FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) in developing leaders, and I have seem some astonishing changes in our officers and members, so now I want to make the next move at "creating the conditions" (as Ted Neitzke would say) for leadership in my classroom.

This summer, I experienced some interesting activities that were shared by Patty Hendrickson at our FBLA Illinois State Leadership Conference; Meg Ormiston's at the technology summer workshop at Sauk Valley Community College and Ted Neitzke through the Hive Summit. All of these amazing speakers had one thing in common: building student leadership in your classroom. Though they all took different approaches, I was amazed on how much commonality they all had.

Problem Solving with Digital Tools

This last week I attended a workshop sponsored by Meg Orimston through the Lee/Ogle/Whiteside Regional ROE. It was amazing! I have attended Meg's workshops now for at least five years, and she is always simply amazing. The workshop lasted two days, from 8:30 to 3:30 at Sauk Valley College. They are most engaging and challenging!

Her workshops are invigorating, and this last workshop lived up to its name. She is a great role model for how we can choose to work with our students. She presents ideas/concepts and potential software usage in her workshops, and then it is up to us to explore, create and collaborate on our own projects. She does not show us how to work in a software; she requires us to explore, assist and collaborate with each other to learn how to use the software in a manner that is unique to our own classroom and our students. She gets out of the way, and gives us time to create, make mistakes, and move forward in our learning. She role models for us her idea of an effective and successful classroom.

Finding Amazing Students

 Written December 30, 2018

Find Amazing Students

Find Your Amazing Students!

Nine years ago, John Vos, my Business & Technology Department Head a SVHS at the time, came to our PLC meeting and highly recommended that we stop teaching students about software, He challenged us to think outside the box and wanted us to have students "explore" software on their own rather than walk them through the step-by-step process. Let them find out for themselves what tools they can use. We as teachers, should be the "why" behind the use of the skills. I remember just sitting there thinking that this was crazy, but an interesting concept. After all, as I reflected, I had largely learned software by exploration myself. But I was left with a question, "Was my learning any different than the ability of my students to learn on their own?"

It is with great caution that I started exploring this teaching challenge. It was not an easy choice. It required me to think differently. I had to change my concept as a teacher: I was being asked to be something that was beyond the scope of my training as a teacher. I truly had no idea what this new teaching idea meant. John had already incorporated this type of teaching into his classroom with amazing results, so I figured it was worth the gamble. My first step was to observe John to see what he was doing and try to understand why it was working so well. After watching John, I had to figure out what this type of teaching would look like in my own classroom. An interesting challenge.

Gamification in Education

Written on Sunday, December 18, 2018

Participating in the Hive Summit this summer (2018) was pretty awesome. Thanks to Ryan Read, I learn about the summit and am glad that I registered. I have been teaching for many years and have used a variety of activities in my classroom to engage students, whether it be group activities, technology, and/or presentations. 

One of the first Hive Summits I listened to was one put out by Michael Matera who spoke on gamification! As I watched the presentation, I had to chuckle. What surprised me was that I have been gamifying without knowing it. Since I started teaching, I have always used some form of gaming for my classroom to engage students. During my internship at Edgewood High School in Madison, WI, I created my own games for my Accounting class. They were created by using poster board, markers and card stock. The first type of game I made was called, "Accounting Pursuit". The game challenged students in their overall knowledge of accounting and business terminologies and transactions for Accounting. Where did I come up with the idea? My sister, who was and is a math and science teacher. She created various types of games for her students, which they loved!